


First Meetings

by avulle



Series: Earth and Fire [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 12:30:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6374800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avulle/pseuds/avulle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toph and Azula meet for the first time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Meetings

**Author's Note:**

> This is an outtake from Modern Day that I never posted because I don't quite consider it canon. I'm posting it now because I kind of love it like a horribly deformed ugly baby.
> 
> It's not really canon (to Modern Day), but, for now, it probably could be if you twisted and pounded at it hard enough.
> 
> Originally written between chapters 9 (Change of Scenery) and 10 (Speaking to the Dead), and I suppose I could consider it chapter 9.5.

Toph and Azula first meet on a very hot autumn day. It would be, quite possibly, the hottest day that autumn (the autumn of 2010, for those following along at home). It is an excruciating day, the kind of day any sane human being would be inside, with at least three levels of air conditioning between them and the outside world.

It goes without saying then, that they meet outside.

Azula is sitting on an obscenely hot bench, staring off into space, and Toph is—just walking.

It is her third day on campus, and she is silently cursing herself for not coming to campus earlier, and walking it out in full before it filled with people that seem to just be itching to stomp all over her toes.

(It is Toph's first major change in scenery in close to ten years.)

The sidewalks churn under Toph's feet as she walks—superheated rock pushed into the earth and cool stone risen to replace it. Toph has been doing this for close to fifteen years, and the sidewalk is undisturbed on her wake.

Azula sees Toph first, her eyes flickering down to Toph's bare feet, and then up to Toph's unfocused gaze before fading away once more. There are one hundred people within thirty feet of her, and Toph does not notice Azula's gaze.

Toph does, however, notice Azula. Of all the (one hundred thirty-four) people around her (she counted), it is only Azula whose skin is actually touching the superheated stone. Where Azula's hand touches the solid stone of the wall beside her, there is the soft press of something that Toph has the experience to recognize as fabric, and not flesh.

And then there is the fact that no one comes within two feet of her— their feet carefully avoiding the small semicircle inscribing her position.

It is one of the hottest days of the year, and Azula is wearing a hoodie and jeans, sitting casually, one leg (probably) crossed over the other, as if its the most comfortable thing in the world.

(To Azula, perhaps it is.)

So Toph crosses the distance between them, and stops directly before her.

Azula looks up, directly into Toph's eyes with the confidence of someone who knows that they are staring at something that (at someone who) can't look back, and then looks away once more.

Toph waits there for another moment, and then drops herself heavily enough on the stone beside Azula for the entire bench to roll.

Azula looks over at her once more, her gaze falling first to Toph's bare feet where they dig a little too far into the sidewalk, then up to where Toph's gaze does not quite meet her own, and then looking away once more.

“Hey there," Toph says, irritated that Azula her refused to rise her bait.

Another look, long and slow and judgemental. Toph can hear the faint rub of skin on cotton that means Azula has turned away from her once more.

“Hello." A pause. “What do you want?"

“Well, I was thinking we could be friends."

Azula hums in response, still not looking at her. “Well, I was thinking that we could not." A sharp glance that Toph doesn't quite react fast enough to meet. “It'll be fun. You can leave, and I can stay here, and everyone will be happy."

Toph narrows her eyes, and Azula doesn’t.

“ _I_ won’t be happy,” Toph says in irritation.

Azula blinks once, a far too silent of a motion for Toph to pick up on, before giving out a soft snort—

“Oh yes,” she says, “I just remembered.” She turns to pin Toph with an icy glare. “I don’t care.”

Toph is unperturbed—understanding that she is probably being glared but really ( _really_ ) not giving a fuck. (Toph has always prided herself on her ability to be incredibly annoying, so she has long since become used to people probably-glaring at her.)

“Oh, come on!” Toph complains, hitting absently at the stone bench just hard enough to give it a nice, consistent rock. “I’m an earthbender, you’re a firebender—”

“That's a bold accusation," Azula says to the crowd before them, already looking away.

Toph blinks, and then Toph turns to stare at Azula incredulously.

“It's over forty degrees, and you're wearing a hoodie!" (Probably. It’s a bit of a gamble, but really—)

“Oh, it can't be more than thirty-five," Azula responds without blinking.

“You're not even sweating!"

“How would you know?"

( _Because I would have felt the salt in your sweat_ , Toph thinks but doesn't say.)

“Because I'm the greatest earthbender in the world."

Azula snorts at that, sparing Toph a disdainful look Toph neither notices nor cares about.

“Yes, I’m sure,” she finally says, and—

Oh, it’s _on_ now.

Toph takes to her feet, stomping hard enough to shake the whole plaza, and maneuvers herself to stand before Azula. “Oh, you want to play it that way?” Toph asks, all that pent-up frustration of being five foot two and blind and the best motherfucking earthbender in the world. She spreads her arms, flexing her fingers just enough to give Azula an unpleasant little nudge. “ _Bring it_.”

For a moment, Toph thinks Azula won’t take the bait, but then suddenly there is an enormous presence before her, searingly hot breath billowing over her face, and Azula’s voice, low and scratchy and dangerous all around her—

“Do you really want to play it that way—” Azula takes a breath, and, for a moment, it’s like all the warmth has been sucked out of the world, “— _earthbender_.” Azula breaths out again, and it’s back to be searingly hot again.

All around them, people stop and stare, but neither Azula nor Toph pay them any mind. Toph rolls her shoulders, cracks her knuckles, and grins her best Blind Bandit grin right back at Azula.

“ _Fuck_ yeah,” she says—because really, what other reason could she have had for harassing a firebender in the height of summer?

Suddenly, Azula is gone from before her, and Toph blinks at the suddenness of her absence. It is so sudden, in fact, that it takes Toph a moment to find Azula—now sitting exactly where she had been sitting when Toph first approached her.

“Well, unfortunately, I don’t really want to go to jail for the rest of my life. Do go away.”

Toph hears the soft sound of denim against denim, feels Azula’s right leg leave the ground (probably to cross over her left), and Azula’s hand returns to the searing bench beside her. (Although Toph can’t see it, Azula’s head is also thrown back, her hair streaming down her back, her face turned up to the sky.)

Toph blinks, and realizes that this is the exact same position she had been in when Toph first noticed her, and she can’t help but laugh. Before her, Azula jerks in surprise, her carefully constructed neutral expression contorting in confusion.

“You’re great!” Toph proclaims loudly, spreading her legs wide on the concrete beneath her, and jabbing a finger forward that almost stabs Azula in the neck. “I like you!”

Azula gives Toph a bewildered blink, glancing briefly around them before turning back to Toph with a look that isn’t so much affectionate as mildly disgusted—the kind of look you give someone who really is just so bizarre that you really just—

Toph laughs again, completely heedless of Azula’s growing desire to just leave, and find another nice, sunny place to sit.

Toph turns her hand, holding it out to shake instead of just using it to almost-jab at the vulnerable flesh of Azula’s exposed neck. “I’m Toph!” Toph continues, still not lowering her voice, her remarkably large voice echoing happily across a good section of campus.

Azula eyes the hand warily, her face still twisted in vague disgust. The hand, in fact, is vaguely brown from what Azula can only pray is dirt.

“I’m not touching that,” she finally says, leaning back a little further away from Toph’s hand.

“If you don’t shake it, I will wipe it on your face,” Toph threatens.

“That would definitely be sexual harassment,” Azula counters, still eyeing the hand warily. She doesn’t really know whether it would be, but it would definitely be _something_ , and she was hoping that phrasing would be jarring enough to make Toph pause.

In that, she is successful. Toph makes a derisive snorting noise (one that rattles noisily with something Azula doesn’t want to even think about) before shaking her hand back into its natural slightly paler color before sticking it back out to Azula.

“I’m still not touching that.”

Toph throws her hands up in frustration. “You’re the worst,” she proclaims to the sky (and the three or four city blocks around them). She drops her gaze back to Azula, and thrusts out both hands in emphasis. “You are the literal worst.”

Azula blinks at her for a moment before slowly easing back up now that Toph’s hand is no longer threatening to wipe her dirty-ass hands on Azula’s face. “I’m glad we’re in agreement, then,” Azula says, still eyeing Toph suspiciously. “Now can you please go away?”

Toph furrows her brow before deciding to ignore Azula’s response completely.

“What’s your name?” she asks, still talking in that voice that would really likely be better styled as _What’s Your Name?_ or perhaps _WHAT’S YOUR NAME?_

Azula gives Toph another look, considering not answering for a long moment before answering—

“Azula. Azula Ishimoto.”

Toph starts at this, before snorting loudly and declaring to the world, “Wow, what kind of dick-ass parents would give you a name like that?”

Azula scowls at this, despite generally agreeing with the sentiment.

“Ozai and Ursa Ishimoto.”

With this, it finally seemed to click. Azula’s name is not particularly well-known, and Ishimoto is a common enough surname, but—Ozai and Ursa _are_ well-known— particularly considering one of them was literally murdered (after he apparently tried to murder someone else first).

(Although the number of people who know anything more about Ozai than he tried to kill someone and they killed him in self-defense are few and far between.)

Toph’s jaw falls open. For a moment, all of her bravado is gone, and she looks genuinely lost as to how to respond to this. Azula smirks faintly to herself, mentally patting herself on the back to keep herself from having a more reasonable response—

“Dude!” Toph booms out again, interrupting Azula’s thoughts, having already apparently recovered.

Azula flinches at the volume, “Oh my God, stop yelling,” she mutters raising a hand to her head.

To her surprise, Toph actually complies.

“ _Dude_ ,” she repeats in something that is probably the Toph equivalent of a whisper. Toph drops to the bench, uncomfortably close beside her, making the bench roll wildly beneath them. Azula takes the opportunity to push herself a little further from Toph.

Toph shifts towards her again, and Azula shoves her back. “Personal _space_ ,” she hisses.

This seems to be what brings Toph at least partially back to her senses. She straightens back up, turning her blind gaze this way and that, her eyes rolling idly over a great number of things she can’t see.

“Huh,” she says. “You’re an Ishimoto.” She says it in a kind of soft voice, almost as if she’s saying it to herself.

Azula blinks once. She thinks of the many ways to respond to this response, and settles upon the easiest—

“Very astute observation.”

“You must be _so_ strong.”

Azula eyes Toph irritably. She is momentarily tempted to do some suitably impressive expression of her firebending, but can’t think of anything that wouldn’t be horribly dangerous, so she just blows a plume of smoke into Toph’s face instead.

At this Toph sputters, coughs, and then chokes. Azula flinches (she’s only ever done it to Iroh before), and leans towards her, “Shit, sorry,” she says, half-surprised to find herself apologizing, setting a hand on Toph’s back as it slowly stops heaving.

Toph blinks the tears from her eyes, and turns her head to where Azula’s face is hovering above her own.

“Dude,” she says, causing Azula to frown faintly, “none of your family have ever been pro-benders—but your dad held his own—” she pauses, and briefly glances away with a muttered _kinda_ “—against P’Li!”

Azula blinks, not quite remembering that way. ( _If this was just a matter of the strength of your flames_ , she remembers P’Li saying, _then it would be no contest_. But then P’Li had done—something—something that shook the stage, shook the earth like Azula had never quite felt before, and when her eyes finally focused again, P’Li was leaned over her father, a blade of flame pressed dangerously close to this neck. _But it’s not_ , P’Li said, the air around her shimmering with heat and rage and her red eyes glittering with disdain. _In any real competition, you are nothing more than_ mediocre _._ )

“That’s stretching it a bit,” she can’t help but interject.

Toph ignores her. “You should join the pro-bending club!”

_No_ , she starts to say, her mouth already forming the words—

But then she remembers P’Li, capable of nothing much more than a weak flame, walking through her father’s flames with a scratch—putting him down without even breaking a sweat.

“Okay,” she finds herself saying before she can catch herself.

Toph gapes at her, before breaking out into a grin.

“That’s great!” Then her smile changes, and Azula cringes, already anticipating— “We can be the Freight Train Brigade!”

“No.”

“What? It’s a great name!”

“I am never joining a pro-bending team with you on it.”

Azula expects Toph to take offense, but she doesn’t. Instead she smiles that wide, confident smile of hers, and says— “You just say that because you haven’t seen me play yet.” She leans forward, all of her teeth on display. “I don’t call myself the greatest earthbender in the world for nothing.”

She says it with such confidence that Azula finds herself almost able to believe it.


End file.
